t last it peeped into the little cave and played upon John's sleeping
face lying within six feet of her. Her prayer had been granted; there
was her lover by her side.

With a start and a great sigh of doubt she recognised him. Was it a
vision? Was he dead? She dragged herself to him upon her hands and knees
and listened for his breathing, if perchance he still breathed and was
not a wraith. Then it came, strong and slow, the breath of a man in deep
sleep.

So he lived. Should she try to wake him? What for? To tell him she was
a murderess and then to let him see her die? For instinct told her that
nature was exhausted; and she knew that she was certainly going--going
fast. No, a hundred times no!

Only she put her hand into her breast, and drawing out the pass on the
back of which she had written her last message to him, she thrust it
between his listless fingers. It should speak for her. Then she leant
over him, and watched his sleeping face, a very incarnation of infinite,
despairing tenderness, and love that is deeper than the grave. And as
she watched, gradually her feet and legs grew cold and numb, till at
length she could feel nothing below her bosom. She was dead nearly to
the heart. Well, it was better so!

The rays of the moon faded slowly from the level of the little cave, and
John's face grew dark to her darkening sight. She bent down and kissed
him once--twice--thrice.

At last the end came. There was a great flashing of light before her
eyes, and within her ears the roaring as of a thousand seas, and her
head sank gently on her lover's breast as on a pillow; and there Jess
died and passed upward towards the wider life and larger liberty, or, at
the least, downward into the depths of rest.

Poor dark-eyed, deep-hearted Jess! This was the fruition of her love,
and this her bridal bed.

It was done. She had gone, taking with her the secret of her
self-sacrifice and crime, and the night-winds moaning amidst the rocks
sang their requiem over her. Here she first had learned her love, and
here she closed its book on earth.

She might have been a great and a good woman. She might even have been a
happy woman. But fate had ordained it otherwise. Women such as Jess are
rarely happy in the world. It is not worldly wise to stake all one's
fortune on a throw, and lack the craft to load the dice. Well, her
troubles are done with. Think gently of her and let her pass in peace!

The hours grew on towards the